Day 6 – Yosemite National Park

A week of sunshine could only give way to a miserable and damp day in the park. We drove through some awesome (and rather damp) mountain roads to reach the park itself, and then engaged in the very American practise of sightseeing-by-car. We’d drive the roads, see something we like, pull over, lean out the window and take photos before driving on. Sometimes I sicken even myself…

We notched it up a bit later, having got bored of taking photos and avoiding the podgy, undertook a serious hike (in serious non-hiking footwear and coats…). The sheer scale of the park is bewildering and the photos I’ve added come nowhere near conveying this. We spent 4 or 5 hours doing a couple of trails, saw 3 or 4 magnificent water falls, but couldn’t even get a good view at many of the best peaks, the most gorgeous lakes, etc.

We hiked around 6 miles in total, with I think around 1500 ft of ascent in total (made up of lots of smaller ascents and descents). A decent hike through the mist trail which followed the river and passed underneath a few of the biggest waterfalls in North America…

Down the bottom was chock-a-block with tourists, mostly with screaming children in tow. Soon as we’d got past the first waterfall it became deadly quiet. Higher up there was still traces of snow (so that the road we’d wanted to take tomorrow, 9,000 ft up, got 5 inches of snow today and is still closed to traffic).

Although the weather put an initial dampener on the day, having mist and cloud floating through, above and below you made the whole place rather eerie. Sunny photos are so dull… The quietness made the possibility of bumping into bears that bit might more likely – there’d been a number of sightings and incidents recently – though I didn’t really fancy wrestling one to the ground to make my heroic escape from the clutches of it’s jaw. Nor did I fancy stumbling upon a mountain lion, which I’m sure could make a tasty meal of me equally quickly. There are apparently plenty of tarantulas in the lower grounds; despite poking about for them in dark crevices, I didn’t find any. Probably for the best…